Mount Jackson is in latitude forty-one degrees ten minutes. It is the largest and highest pinnacle of the President's range.[35] This chain of mountains runs parallel with the Rocky Mountains, between three hundred and four hundred miles from them. Its average distance from the coast of the Pacific, south of latitude forty-nine degrees, is about one hundred miles. The spaces between the peaks are occupied by elevated heights, covered with an enormous growth of the several species of pines, and firs, and the red cedar, many of which rise two hundred feet without a limb; and are five, six, seven, eight, and even nine fathoms in circumference at the ground.
{228} On the south side of the Columbia, at the Cascades, a range of low mountains puts off from the President's range, and running down parallel to the river, terminates in a point of land on which Astoria was built. Its average height is about one thousand five hundred feet above the river. Near the Cascades the tops are higher; and in some instances are beautifully castellated. They are generally covered with dense pine and fir forests. From the north side of the Cascades, a similar range runs down to the sea, and terminates in Cape Disappointment.[36] This range also is covered with forests. Another
- [Footnote: The mountain named for Monroe cannot now be definitely determined,
because of confusion of nomenclature. It would seem from the latitude given by Kelley to have been intended for the present Mount Scott. Mount John Quincy Adams is the present Mount Pitt, which name was first assigned by the English to Mount Shasta; this, according to Thornton (op. cit. in note 29, ante), was also the Mount Monroe of the Americans. The term Mount Pitt is now applied to a volcanic peak (altitude 9,760 feet) on the borders of Jackson County, Oregon, eight miles west of Klamath Lake.—Ed.]north. Next to Rainier, Shasta is the highest peak of the Cascades, attaining 14,380 feet in altitude, and being perpetually capped with snow.—Ed.]
